Ready? Got some?

If you now do have some New Year resolutions, then you are probably already failing. Or know that you will eventually probably fail. In the end, most people do. I know I fail. What’s worse, we are, in fact, sabotaging our resolutions and we don’t even know it.

Whether you appreciate my twisted sense of humor or not, you might ask: How can I be already failing and sabotaging my resolutions if I have only set them a minute ago? Well, good question.

Ladies and gentleman, prepare to be shocked, but…

It’s not about putting the effort into your resolutions!

Wait a minute! If it’s not about putting the effort into your resolutions, then what is it all about?

Well, here comes the $64,000 answer:

It is about making sure that you will keep putting the effort into your resolutions.

Big difference.

In my experience, I am either making damn sure that I will keep putting effort into my main goals, or I am inevitably failing – it’s just a matter of time, really. It works the other way around too though – done properly, the success can be inevitable.

Don’t let the fate of your resolutions be doomed before you equip them with the right weaponry necessary to succeed in the Age of Distraction. Oh look, a butterfly! It’s so pretty! It’s flying onto twitter! No, it’s Facebook. No wait, it’s reddit! (… 3 hours later…) What was I talking about? Oh, right. Distractions. They are getting worse every year. Are you getting better at making sure they don’t control your life? I will show you how I personally do this nearly Sisyphean task.

But first, I will have to disagree with Mr. Albert Einstein. Just for fun. Because that’s the way I roll. Actually, not for fun, I’m trying to make a point here. Seriously now – I believe it was this particular gentleman who said:

“Compound interest is the greatest invention in human history”.

Hear hear, but how about compound effort? Now we are talking!

Compound effort

There are two main ways of making sure that you finish something: Using someone else to make sure that you will keep putting effort into it (the Mad Klingon way), or making sure you will keep putting effort in yourself. I’m going to talk about the latter, as it is much more powerful and flexible, and can be combined with the first way anyway.

No working complex system that exists was built at once. All such systems gradually evolved. It is the same with non-trivial goals (or resolutions). The only way to ensure that you will fulfill your goals is to keep putting in effort over time and not stop doing that.

However, even if you use tricks to fool yourself into working, there is no guarantee you will keep doing that consistently. Year is a long time, and there are a lot of butterflies flying around, if you catch my drift.

How I don’t sabotage myself

I don’t know what the perfect solution is for you, but after many years of trial-and-error, I’ve finally discovered mine. Some credit is to Sebastian Marshall who has written about time tracking on his blog extensively. However, what I do is not really time tracking. I’ve crafted the following technique for my purposes.

This is what I do –

After I am done for the day, I print a checklist template for the next day and fill my 3 main objectives for the next day into it. Then I go happily to sleep. (Added bonus: As I fall asleep, my sub-consciousness is already working on these 3 objectives.) After I wake up, I check things off the checklist as the day progresses, either marking that I’ve done them or not. Loop this for 365 days in a row.

Timeless truth: What gets measured gets done.

What to put on the checklist depends on your goals. You should start simple. The essence of what I have there is roughly this:

• Y / N    Get up before 8 AM
• Y / N    Stretch after waking up
• Y / N    Drink water after stretching
• Y / N    Work on 1 main goal first thing on my PC, even before email or starting the browser or IM (5 min is enough)
• Y / N    Work on 3 main goals (specific tasks were chosen yesterday):
  • _________________________________________________
  • _________________________________________________
  • _________________________________________________
• Y / N    Work on blog post or article (5 min is enough)
• Y / N    Prepare checklist for the next day and write the main goals into it
• Y / N    Send a report of what I’ve accomplished today to my friend
• Y / N    Go to bed before 11 PM

My real checklist is like 4 times longer, because I want to keep track of at least 15 different areas/projects. I have no intentions of working on all of them on any particular day, but just having them as suggestions on my checklist, which always lies beside my computer, is extremely powerful. I maintain the template in my own Windows software Swift To-Do List as I like pretty print-outs, but you can use almost about anything – even notepad will do.

At first, it might seem a lot of hassle and paper, but the effort is absurdly low for the enormous benefits. I also file the old checklists into a binder. I simply can’t miss a day, there is no excuse. If, God forbid, something like that were to happen, I would print 2 checklists and fill in the missing info.

If you have daily checklist, the only way you can fail is not to fill the checklist. Even if you don’t do anything else and just fill the checklist, the day is a success.

Why it must be printed? First, I don’t want to begin my morning routine on the computer. I would much rather stretch, drink some water, and review the checklist first. Second, I want to be able to end the day with the computer turned off. Plus it’s more fun and you can’t overlook the paper. That white paper sheet is just glowing there. (Unless, of course, you have a pile of trash on your desk. In that case I can’t help you; I guess you should just burn the desk down and go home.)

For me, it is actually easier to work on my main goals every single freaking day, instead of just 3 days in a week or now and then or some other complex or random pattern – that just never works for me. I like it simple and consistent.

Endless power

Just imagine the raw sheer power of my daily checklist. Whatever I put into it, I’m 100% sure I will think about it, every day, for a year. And I will actually usually do it too, on most days.

I’m sure you can relate to this: If you are working on an internet project or have a business, you are juggling 7253 balls (or so). Sometimes, you forget that some of the balls are even there and let them silently drop on the ground. And sometimes you notice some of these balls got dropped and you feel bad about not juggling them for so long. Solution? Daily checklist.

What I am describing here is the most powerful productivity technique I’ve ever encountered in my life. I already have a lot of experience both with other methods and this one. For example, 2 years ago, I’ve used this technique for my personal life (habits, exercise, diet, not going insane) and stuff like that. And I’ve actually really filled over 340 check list in a row, not missing a day, before stopping. The effects have sunk in and the habit changes are permanent. I’ve also learned quite a lot about myself. My life is better forever.

Believe me – it’s not that important to work on your goals every day. What is important is to make sure that you will keep working on your goals and that you won’t forget about them.

Press “F5” in your brain to refresh your goals

… and push them back up in the endless list of thoughts, where everything quickly falls down and drops out of view. And do it often.

I personally fanatically adhere to the checklist routine – as long as I am printing and filling my daily checklist, the year can’t be bad. It’s just not possible. This ensures I will keep putting effort into my main annual goals.

I don’t care how you do this, but do it! Tattoo it on your forehead, carve it out of dead pixels into your screen, rearrange the keys on your keyboard so they read like the name of your goal, if you must. But do it!

However, there are certainly other ways of making sure you won’t forget about your goals and eventually finish them – please leave a comment: What has worked for you? What do you think could work for you?

Related Posts:

• Achieving Goals Like a Mad Klingon
• 10 best tricks of fooling myself to work
• How to Overcome Resistance to Work – 4 Techniques
• Outsmarting Yourself for Success
• This one simple habit will help you get everything done
• Double your productivity, stop procrastinating and master your habits with new video training

Seriously, Stop Sabotaging Your 2023 Goals is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

The setup file for the new release will display a different publisher: Ondrej Forda instead of Jiri Novotny.

Ondrej Forda is the current CEO of Dextronet.com and signed a new certificate that proves the authenticity of our installation setup files.

We want to inform you that this is an intentional change and it has no effect on the installation or the program.

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An important change in the upcoming Swift To-Do List release is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

You can see the rating here:
https://swift-to-do-list.updatestar.com/

In our software, we’ve always been focusing on installation easiness and safety.

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Swift To-Do List 10 is safe to install is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

We apologize for any inconvenience. We will resume normal operation as soon as possible. This maintenance should improve the stability of the Sync Service.

Thank you for your understanding!

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Announcement: Sync Service Maintenance on Saturday 2/4 is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

We apologize for any inconvenience. We will resume normal operation as soon as possible. This maintenance is very much needed since we’ll be upgrading the Sync Service for the upcoming Swift To-Do List 10 release.

Thank you for your understanding!

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Announcement: Sync Service Maintenance between Saturday 9/3 and Sunday 9/4 is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog

We are happy that many of you find the Secure Sync, our mobile apps and the web-app for Swift To-Do List helpful. You might have noticed that when using the Secure Sync, you mostly don’t get bothered with task edit conflicts and such. That’s because we want to make it as easy to use as possible. That is however a complicated job and occasionally in some edge cases, given the complexity and the amount of data we are managing in the Secure Sync, problems may take a little longer to solve than we would like to. We always appreciate your patience and assistance in identifying the root of the issue.

Now the big news – Swift To-Do List 10 is coming this year! If you own the current Swift To-Do List 9 subscription license, it will be a free upgrade for you.

Our main goal for Swift To-Do List 10 is now a long-awaited full Scheduler/Calendar. We will also introduce some other new features and improvements in the Secure Sync infrastructure.

Apart from that we plan on introducing new Team features to make it easier and more productive to use Swift To-Do List in organizations.

Also, updates to our companion mobile apps – such as background sync – are one the way.

We are super glad for all the positive feedback about Swift To-Do List helping you with your every day life, especially the Secure Sync. That gives us inspiration to continue working on Swift To-Do List and make it even better for you. Thank you!

May Swift To-Do List help you make 2016 truly great for you!

Related Posts:

• Swift To-Do List 10 with scheduling calendar released!
• Introducing Swift To-Do List subscription plans
• Swift To-Do List app for iPhone and Android released!
• Beta testers wanted for attachments sync
• Swift To-Do List 9 released!
• Coming Soon: New Swift To-Do List 8 with subtasks!

What we are up to in 2016: Swift To-Do List 10 is coming is a post from: Swift To-Do List Blog